Whether or not the Doctor or Clara know what's happening in that moment, it's intended to be clear to the viewer. Not only can you see from the credits that the mom in the playground scene is indeed Clara's mom in other episodes, but the trope comes up frequently enough that the viewer is primed to notice. That said,…

I may be mistaken, but I'm fairly sure that we see the little girl's parents and they're the same actors who played Clara's parents in the meet-cute flashback.

If you haven't watched Elementary, I highly recommend it. The cases on Sherlock are better written, but Elementary does far better by its characters. Their take on Irene Adler is excellent and a wonderful counterpoint to the schlock that was BBC's Irene.

I really hate this trope and find it increasingly creepy every time Moffat uses it. Oh, Amy has been obsessed with the Doctor since childhood? Cool, excellent, they should be BFFs forever! (Well, until she dies). Oh hey, River has been obsessed with the doctor since childhood, and even her birth was because of the…

I can't help but wonder if this is wishful thinking. I really cannot imagine Moffat picking anyone but a vaguely unattractive, quirky white dude. That said, I am really not looking forward to more of the same and sincerely hope they pick a MOC (let's be realistic; it ain't going to be a woman). Perhaps enough of the…

I would only approve of this idea if they somehow ret-conned it so that Oswin Oswald became the Doctor. She was great, but Clara has been really poorly written. Which only goes to prove that Moffat is incapable of maintaining a well-written female character for more than two episodes at a time. Seriously, I've felt so…

I'm with you sister. I feel like that Jay Z song should be rewritten for lesbians: I got 99 problems, but a dude ain't one?

Shit, they should make this a program on college campuses as well. They're notorious for spreading communicable diseases and, as a debt-ridden graduate student, I can wash me some hands.

My dad is a nurse and will readily attest to this—those people don't wash their hands (or use gloves) as often as they should. Moreover, anecdata indicates that medical professionals are stupidly likely to smoke (seriously, have you ever seen a hospital without a cluster of doctors and nurses smokin' it up across the…

Man alive, is anyone else alarmed by how young these teens look? I guess I'm officially an old, but I don't remember looking so damn young when I was 14.

Spelling is a useful skill, in and of itself. The ability to spell lots and lots of different words at a competitive level is probably taking a useful skill to unnecessary height, but that's the nature of basically any competition (being fit and coordinated is a good skill to have, but sports competitions are not…

That may be an issue of dumb vanity sizing, but is equally likely an issue of poorly made, non-quality controlled clothing. I have two pairs of jeans from Lucky that are the exact same style and size, but fit completely differently. One, you know, fits and the other is so small that I can barely button them. I find it…

I would watch that porn.

I have no idea what my first CD was (and let's be real, it was probably actually a first tape cassette), but Jagged Little Pill was my first concert. In retrospect, I was much too young (not even in the double digits), but that's the joy of having a parent with poor judgement.

I'm with you. Screw you guys, I'm taking my Humanities degree and going home.

You know, I used to agree with this viewpoint in a knee-jerk sort of way, but have become more and more annoyed with it. Women have a variety of secondary sex characteristics; pubic hair is by no means the only one. I've slept with women without pubic hair and was quite able to tell them apart from children. I get…

I've wondered this myself. The only two anecdata I have are a Spanish girlfriend who shaved it all, and an Italian woman I knew who didn't shave anything and didn't appear to give a rat's ass if pubes peaked out of her swimsuit. The former was very cosmopolitan and the latter a bit more conservative and a Catholic, so…

I'm with you. Am I missing something here? I get that the film is meta and exploring gender/sexuality and representational issues, but... really? The entire premise is that dudes like porn and women like romance, and that women hate porn because DUH! How is that different from any other run-of-the-mill rom com? It…